


Orange Peels

by 65writings



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Post-Season/Series 03, Sharing a Bed, if you want soft billy and sleepy/sassy steve..., sick!Steve, two boys falling in love really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:34:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22425658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/65writings/pseuds/65writings
Summary: Steve is sick. It arguably causes more problems than one. But it leaves Billy Hargrove asleep at his side over, and over, and over again, so how bad is it really?Or, Steve is sick and Billy, who’s staying with Joyce Byers and Jim Hopper, does his best to take care of him until he's feeling better in a lot of ways.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove & Steve Harrington, Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 10
Kudos: 280





	Orange Peels

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flippyspoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flippyspoon/gifts).



> Almost two years ago, I messaged @flippyspoon if she’d prompt me for another fic to follow my previous. She asked for some sick!Steve and caretaker!Billy. I tried to write it for her, but could never get my teeth around it. I guess it took a year and a half and completely forgetting about it at all for all of this to come out of a gif made by @strangergrove on tumblr. 
> 
> Thanks for the continued hype on my stuff, Flippy. It means a lot more than I could say.

“Harrington, if you don’t lighten up, I’m taking this next exit and ditching you at a BP or something,” Billy said, finally interrupting his own one-man, twelve-song, three-cigarette-long, in-car performance.

It wasn’t that Billy was a bad singer… more that Steve just wasn’t  _ feeling _ it. On top of that, too—he really wasn’t too keen on being threatened over his reaction to the situation at hand.

Steve rolled his eyes, “Gee, lemme just apologize for not bouncing off the walls sixty-something hours into searching for my friend’s missing little brother.”

“She’s not your friend,” Billy said.

“Huh?”

“Nancy. She’s not your friend. She’s your ex.”

Three months ago, Joyce moved back into town. She never explicitly said why, though moving half of every budding or surviving couple over a stateline likely didn’t suit her well. She probably realized that when she felt it on a personal-level herself; she beelined straight into Hopper’s arms the second he reappeared in Hawkins, moving herself and her children into his house without another thought. They spent a month building onto his small cabin in the countryside—with help of course—and managed to tack on two extra bedrooms with bathrooms and an extension to the kitchen space. For awhile they tried to force everyone to move in with them—everyone being mainly Steve and the Wheeler’s—though it became obvious that that wasn’t practical or going to happen, no matter how safe it seemed. Instead, they settled for hosting occasional big-group wine dinners and sleepovers for the kids every night their parents would allow it. 

Steve couldn’t exactly resist either. He made his way over to Hopper’s much more often than he’d like to admit. The kids and Robin were really his only friends now and he’d abandoned the idea of college, at least for now. So, really, anything was better than wasting his days alone, bored, in his dad’s big, empty house.

But there was one night in particular, maybe a month ago, they were all lounging about the living room—the adults sharing cigarettes and some cheap bourbon and the kids occupying themselves with two boxes of runts and a two-liter of Dr. Pepper. Max, Eleven, Mike, and Dustin were busy in a card game—Lucas and Will watching over them passively. The girls were absolutely creaming the boys.

Steve remembered it vividly because just as Dustin was about to rage-quit in frustration, there was a small flurry of knocks at the back door, almost too quiet to hear.

Everyone was silent, wondering if it might’ve been the wind––or worse. 

Then the knocking came again, just as quietly as it had the first time.

Everyone looked around at one another with big, scared eyes.

Except for Eleven, whose eyes were closed. She was shivering, and holding her folded hands up to her mouth. She was whispering something. 

“ _ El _ ,” Hopper warned her as she suddenly stood and hurried into the kitchen. “El!”

She ignored him, clamping her hand down on the doorknob. Before anyone could hurry to her, she was yanking it open.

“ _ Billy _ ,” she said.

And it was. 

She threw her arms around him, and he scooped her up into his arms. He bent backwards under her weight, and set her back down carefully.

“You’re  _ home _ !” she said. 

_ Home. _

Eleven guided Billy by the wrist to stand in the living room. Everyone was silent, too shocked to say anything at all. For Hopper to resurface from the dead, was one thing.    
Billy Hargrove was something else entirely.

He looked like a stray cat—bony, gnarled, curly-hair unkempt and long. He was dressed in grey sweats from head to toe. He stared at the ground sheepishly, only once glancing around at his audience’s albicant faces. Steve was the last person he dared to look at.

Their hearts were tied into a knot in their throats. Steve wasn’t sure whether he was even still alive.

So Billy stayed in Hopper’s guest bedroom. And there were only two weird things about that. 

For one, it took little exploration for Billy and Eleven to realize that there was some bond between the two of them that allowed Eleven her powers. That explained how she’d known it was him at the door. Without him, she was still unable to so much as move the salt-shaker, but with him—it was almost as if she was as good as new, if not better than she’d ever been before. Her nose didn’t bleed; moving larger objects no longer made her shake or weak; and she could still walk the upside down, though she said there was something “different” about it. All Billy had to do was stand nearby. 

The only other weird thing about it was that Billy was  _ nice _ now. He’d helped Joyce finish up her leftover renovations; he’d helped Hopper in the back garden and mowed the lawn down one final time before the weather changed. And then he’d helped them rake their leaves, replace their gutters, and replace the radiator in Joyce’s car.

Joyce recounted all of this to Steve over lunch one afternoon. Billy was out getting their groceries for them.

“He offered,” Joyce beamed. “But I can’t stop him!”

Which meant that sometimes Billy was genuinely, actually, maybe  _ thoughtful _ . Like now, as they barrelled down this Indiana background, following a map in the dark to an address Eleven had seen in a vision and trying—in his still backwards way—to ask what was wrong.

“I have feelings,” Steve said.

Billy frowned out at the road, though it was clearly still meant for Steve. “What does that have to do with anything?”    
“Do you ever think before you speak?”

“Of course I do,” Billy replied, rubbing at the shadow of stubble on his chin and lifting his eyes for just a moment to glance in the rearview mirror. “I don’t car-sing for just anybody.”

“You think that’s all it takes to make me forget about—”

“Do I need to turn soon?” Billy asked. He reached over and closed the left side front car vent. Steve could tell it was warm in the car, though he still, for some reason, felt cold.

Steve turned the heat all the way off for Billy and just shifted into himself more, wrapping one arm around his middle and using the other to hold open their map. “It seems like your next obvious left is our exit. It shouldn’t be for awhile.”

Billy nodded. And then he said, “I don’t expect you to  _ forget _ about everything. I was just thinking maybe I could take your mind off of everything for a bit.” He shrugged, glancing over at Steve for only just a second.

Steve huffed and turned his attention to the window. He didn’t know how to respond to that.

Steve never knew how to respond to Billy—not when he was mean, but especially not now in these moments where Billy was stepping beyond being charismatically nice.

The first time that Billy had offered Steve a cigarette, he’d had one in his own mouth already—held behind his bottom teeth with his tongue, so that when Billy turned, leaned in a little closer, and lifted his blue eyes to Steve’s, it was pointing right at him. 

“You want one?” Billy had said, extending the box to him. “Joyce doesn’t mind if we smoke in the house, which is nice.”

They were sitting safely apart on a long, plush couch that sunk in almost too deep in the seats. Billy’s free arm was extended out over the back of it, and his fingers were almost close enough to brush Steve’s ear.    
“Did you like… fuck with them?”   
“Huh?”

“Did you like dunk them in gasoline so that I’ll explode or something?”

“Well,” he said, taking his eyes away finally to look down into the carton, “unless the guy at the corner store was really bored on this fine Thursday afternoon, I don’t think these cigarettes are explosives. I don’t have the patience for something like that. If I wanted you to explode, I’d’ve blown you up by now.”

So Steve took a cigarette. It wasn’t a brand Steve had tried, but it wasn’t half-bad. Maybe a little strong.

But the thing about that cigarette was, after Billy had lit his for him, he said, “Ya know, Harrington, all that time they had me at that hospital trying to make sure I didn’t die again, I found myself sometimes hoping you’d show up or something. Even though you had no way of knowing I was even alive.”

Steve’s stomach plunged into his feet.

He didn’t have anything to say to that either. 

Steve shifted in his seat so that he could just see the California boy at the corner of his eye. Billy had managed to light and drag on another cigarette while Steve was lost in his thoughts. His hands were gripped around the wheel of Steve’s Beemer, his tongue pushing against his cheek from the inside of his mouth and the peaks of his flayer scars stretching out from under his denim jacket collar, climbing all the way up his neck and reaching as high as where his sharp jawline met his ear. 

Steve felt a pinch in his chest.

Mike Wheeler was strong, wherever he was; at sixteen, he’d already carried a burden much bigger and for much longer than most kids his age could even wrap their head around. He fought hard and thought on his feet in every situation he faced. He was unstoppable when he set his mind to something; he could easily set his mind on refusing to die.

But no one on Earth is as strong or as unstoppable as Billy Hargrove, and even he just  _ barely _ made it out of his brush with the flayer alive.

Billy shrugged his shoulders as if uncomfortable—as if maybe he could read Steve’s mind—and glanced over at Steve again, his head still resting on the window. Billy’s blue eyes were soft, like they were melting, but his dark eyebrows were lowered over top of them. As they just looked at one another, a ghostly curl of smoke from Billy’s cigarette left his mouth slowly, only to be sucked out through his cracked window and into the cool Indiana air.

“So what you’re telling me, Harrington,” Billy said lowly, “is that you  _ really _ don’t like my singing, huh?”    
Steve stared at him until Billy finally pulled his eyes back to the road.

He couldn’t help himself; Steve began to laugh. 

“I hate it, actually,” he replied and then, for the first time in a long time, a smile cracked across his face. It felt like being punched in the mouth. It made his nose burn and his eyes water. “You sound like a fucking cat, ya know? Like when you accidentally step on their tail, except you don’t move your foot away for an entire album?”

Billy wasn’t looking at him directly, which made Steve feel a little less embarrassed as the first tear spilled over his cheek. He caught it with his sleeve and sniffed in hard, but that only made it worse.

Now, he could feel Billy watching him from the corner of his glassy eyes. He was probably wondering what the fuck was wrong with him. Steve wanted to fling himself at Billy and tell him that he didn’t know why he was like this.

God, Steve felt like shit.

And now Steve was shivering, too.

“Just get out of the car right here, Harrington,” Billy said nonchalantly, his voice loud enough to make Steve jump. Steve was staring, wide-eyed, at Billy’s profile. “Right now. Full speed. You’re really hurting my feelings with that crying. Don’t you think before you just start crying everywhere?”

There were tears in Billy’s eyes too now. 

Oh my god.

“You asshole!” Steve laughed. He couldn’t believe he was crying in front of Billy Hargrove, and that Billy Hargrove was crying with him too. “Since when do you have feelings?”

“Get  _ out _ , Harrington!” Billy yelled back, full-voiced but smiling as the first glistening tear rolled down and off his chin, soaking into the denim of his jacket. He reached his hand out and across Steve’s chest, looking out at the road, but pointing at the passenger door. “Out!”

They were both sobbing now—both practically hysterical, but trying desperately to stop. Steve’s hands were trembling as he reached for the door. He had to hold his wrist stable with the other hand in order to get his fingers around the handle. His whole body was hot, and aching, like maybe he were about to explode at every joint.

He yanked on the door—probably much harder and too many more times than he should’ve—but couldn’t stop himself as Billy’s genuine laugh filled the car.

It was the first time he’d ever heard Billy Hargrove  _ actually _ laugh, Steve realized.

After they’d bullied each other over high school kingship. After they’d sworn to be each other’s opposites. After Billy broke a plate over Steve’s head and after Steve hadn’t thought about him twice while Billy died in the middle of the Starcourt Mall.

They were both laughing together as they barrelled through that wooded back road with the hopes that they’d end up at this Indianapolis address and hopefully not die or walk away with any dead bodies.

_ At least I got to hear him laugh _ , Steve thought to himself.

Then Billy started coughing and Steve wiped the tears from his own eyes on the sleeve of his flannel. They both sniffled at the same time.

—

They slept in a motel that night. It was a flat, brown building with a green roof and a line of green doors. It sat next to a Waffle House and across from a Shell Station. From what they could tell, it seemed to be not much more than twenty-minutes from the address. They were to be there the next morning at five so that they could meet with Joyce, Hopper, Murray, and Eleven to find a way into the Indianapolis Lab—the  _ new _ lab, with  _ new _ equipment and security and defenses and  _ Mike _ . 

Nancy and Jonathan were staying with the rest of the kids not too far away in the dire case that they needed backup. But with Billy and El together, they were hoping that wouldn’t be necessary.

But as Billy fumbled with the room key—his fingers stiff and his shoulders hunched—and limped into the small room, Steve began to wish they hadn’t roped him into this.

He’d already done his part. He’d shown everyone that it was possible to defeat the flayer and whatever is behind it. He’d sacrificed his own life for some kid he didn’t even know—all to walk away from the situation a fractured skeleton of what he used to be.

And here Steve was asking him to do it all over again. To potentially lose it all again. 

Even through Steve’s stuffy nose, he could taste the lingering smell of cigarettes and stale sheets inside the motel room. Against the far wall was a double bed with a ratty brown blanket tossed over off-white bedding and four half-flat pillows which were stacked up against a faded headboard. There wasn’t much else to the room aside from a rustic floor lamp, a short fridge next to an oddly doorless bathroom, and a dresser pushed up beside the bed.

Immediately Billy began to free himself from all of his things—stepping out of his boots, shrugging his jacket off onto the floor, and emptying his jean pockets onto the nightstand. Keys. Wallet. Zippo. A pack of cigs. And a yellowed prescription bottle.

He stretched for a brief moment—his uplifted arms tugging his shirt up to reveal the dimples in his lower back and the tail of a scar that forked as it dripped down his spine, one tail curling up and ending in a little point, and the other growing wider and disappearing under the waist of his jeans. Then Billy rubbed at his eyes with the sleeve of his grey shirt before climbing onto the bed. He settled on top of the covers on the side closest to where Steve still stood in the doorway. He tucked his hands under his head and the pillow so that his arm blocked most of his face. 

Yet Steve could still see one eye closed tightly, his brow set almost as if he were frowning. 

Billy Hargrove seemed like the last person on Earth to be willing to share a bed. Like, Steve could just see him instructing a bewildered, completely naked high school chick—hair falling out of a curly ponytail and blue eyeshadow and mascara smeared around her face—that she’d have to sleep on the floor or find a ride home. 

Though that would’ve been high school Billy…

There was no couch in the room and the floor of this motel was a tomato-red carpet with yellow flecks, almost highlighting the oddly large, ugly stains and stark discolorations at the well-travelled parts of the room. And the way Billy was laying so tediously on the edge of the bed... it seemed that maybe he was perhaps willing to compromise tonight.

He was probably just too tired to care. Steve was, at least. He assumed Billy was the same, if not worse.

This must have been day two or three for Billy without any sleep. He’d stayed up with Eleven in the nights after Mike disappeared. Steve thought of Billy’s voice travelling through the wall between El’s room and the living room—not the words, but the sound—talking her down until her crying stopped. Then, his stoicism as he burst out of the room late at night and into the living room where Steve, Hopper, Joyce, and Jonathan, sat waiting. Billy presented Joyce with the address written down on the newspaper clipping in Eleven’s handwriting, explaining that she knew that Mike was there. 

Steve was pretty sure he’d heard Billy sing Eleven to sleep after that.

Then, Billy had refused to let Steve drive his own car on their way here, even at the bribe of an hour-long nap. Or even stop to let Steve buy him a snack after Billy had skipped his lunch.

Billy said he wasn’t tired, but that so obviously wasn’t true. 

Steve was dying—his nose was stuffy and his hands were clammy and he just felt so  _ cold _ —and yet he’d slept on Joyce’s couch and ate something for lunch and knew every detail of the plan. 

At least, finally, Billy’s ribs were expanding at that slow, gentle cadence of rest. His body seemed to have relaxed into the mattress and ever so softly, Steve could hear Billy snoring. 

Steve flicked off the overhead lights, stepping out of his Nikes and leaving them on top of his folded coat, which he set down by the door. He locked them in—and the world out—with all three bolts.

Then, by the light filtering in through their one window from the streetlight on the far side of the motel lot, Steve crossed to the bedside dresser and carefully checked the drawers for an extra blanket. He found one nearly identical to the one already under Billy in the bottomost drawer. He opened it and then gently, as to not disturb him at all, Steve spread the blanket over Billy before crossing to the other side of the bed. He let himself in under the covers and rocked himself until he drifted off to sleep.

—

For Billy to ever sleep for more than a few hours nowadays—or ever, really—was weird. So, when he woke, he sat up, dazed for just a moment. He nearly jumped out of his skin when something rolled in the bed next to him, his heart slamming into his mouth. But then he saw a shock of Steve’s brown tangles of hair amid the pillows and blankets, and everything began to trickle back to him. 

The clock on the nightstand blinked a red 3:29 am at him in the darkness.

He stared back at it.

They’d have to be standing at the outermost gates of the lab with their weapons raised and their eyes peeled open, ready to look death dead-on in an hour and a half.

_ Fuck _ .

Billy looked down at the man sleeping at his side. Steve had rolled over to face Billy in his sleep, and even migrated onto Billy’s half of the bed. Steve had looked sick in the car—arms wound around himself, his eyes glassy, and rubbing at his nose for the hour-long drive. The longer Billy looked at him now, the more he could see it—flushed-white skin, beads of sweat on the side of his face, and some pain in the way his eyes were pulled tightly closed. Steve was breathing through his opened mouth.

When was the last time Steve Harrington had caught a break?

At least not since Billy’d shown up in Hawkins, ablaze with all of the vengeance and stifled lust in the world. It was perfect, too, because the first person Billy’d really laid eyes on was the one he knew he needed, but could never have—so he laid into him in all of the ways he could to make up for the one way he couldn’t.

That’s when Billy realized that one of Steve’s hands was holding his thin blanket up to his face and the other was loosely gripping the hem of Billy’s white shirt, which had worked itself up on Billy’s stomach. 

Billy could feel Steve’s knuckles against his ribs. His skin was so hot.

And that was it.

—

Billy pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers. The phone in the motel’s lobby had a weirdly metallic ring and Billy was sick of hearing it loud in his ear. He was sick of burning through cigarettes, too. He bit down on his last one, letting it rest between his teeth. He was hoping he’d have the patience to not light it. He figured he’d need it more some other time. 

This was his third time trying to reach Nancy. He stared at the post-it note he’d taken from Steve’s wallet and restuck to the wall. He was absolutely positive he’d dialed the right number. 

_ “NaNcE _ , _ ”  _ Steve had written in his chicken-scratch handwriting. That was the phone number they were supposed to call in case they needed anything, at any time. This was the number that was supposed to reach them.

Fucking  _ NaNcE. _

When the receiver finally clicked—interrupting itself mid-ring—Billy had to bite his own lip to keep his cool. 

“Could this be Sleeping Beauty? Or Nancy Wheeler?” he asked around his cigarette. He was doing much better about not being such a piece of shit, but not necessarily when it came to Nancy. She made shit complicated.

“Billy?” she whispered back. She sounded aggravated and groggy, like she was pissed that he’d woken her.

Well, he was pissed that he’d had to call her three times for her to finally pick up. And maybe a little bit too for laying it on Steve Harrington in a way that Billy never could.

“Harrington’s not coming,” Billy said, pinching his nose harder and staring at the ground. His boots were untied. And the burnt-orange tiles under him were coated in a layer of grime. He thought of Steve asleep in the motel bed, and took the cigarette out of his mouth. He held it between his fingers and tried to imagine how he’d feel if he’d lit it.

“Excuse me?” she said after a long pause. She sounded more awake suddenly. “What do you mean he’s not coming?”

“He’s not coming,” Billy repeated himself bluntly. “He’s safe. I think he’s sick. He’s asleep in our motel room. I’m not bringing him with me.”

A loud thud followed by some smaller rustling noises crackled through the phone. Then, Nancy’s voice came back much, much louder. “We need him for this. He was fine when we left. You can’t go around making decisions for—”

“I just did. The kid needs a break. I’m driving to meet Joyce and whoever the fuck else now. He’ll be stuck here without a car until I come back for him. I’m letting you know what to expect.”

“Are you out of your mind?”

Billy ignored her. “Steve’s not coming,” he repeated one last time. “You can call Joyce and give her a heads-up if you want. But don’t worry about a thing.”

And with that, he hung up the phone.

—

When Steve woke up, the room was dark. Billy was sitting up in bed next to him— _ right _ next to him, their hips and legs touching all the way down. 

—

The second time Steve woke up, it was to the sounds of the door bolt coming undone quickly. First it was the keys twisting violently in the lock, then the doorknob shaking, and then the whole door burst open and spilled a disheveled Billy Hargrove into the room. Steve pulled himself up now in the bed, squinting at Billy through the sleep in his eyes. He felt like he was swimming in his own head, and his shoulder ached for some reason. He rubbed at it and then watched, blinking hard and trying not to be sick, as a distorted Billy pressed into the room, his hands outstretched towards Steve.

“What’s—“ Steve tried, but it felt like his own voice was failing him. He rubbed his hands over his face, “—what’s wrong?”

That was the one thing he could discern—that something was very wrong.

“Nothing,” Billy said, picking up his wallet up from the desktop and pocketing it. Steve watched him without thinking anything. He felt like garbage. “Nothing’s wrong. Everything’s okay. Everyone’s alright. But we’ve gotta go, pretty boy.”

_ Pretty boy _ . Steve hadn’t heard that in so long.

“O-okay,” Steve agreed. He struggled to free himself from the twists of blanket around him, but with Billy’s help, he quickly slid off the bed and let his feet towards the ground. He felt intoxicated maybe. Or like the first time he’d smoked weed with Tommy and some chick named Lorelei. He felt like the first time Billy had pressed towards him on the basketball court—skin slick and shiny and his mouth open so that his tongue could rest between his teeth.

He felt like he couldn’t find the floor.

“Hey," Steve tried again, but he stopped himself. His stomach was doing flips. Maybe he was a lot sicker than he’d thought.

“It’s okay. You’re dizzy,” Billy said, shouldering half of Steve’s weight. Together, like that, they limped out to the car.

Steve had never felt  _ this _ sick. This sick felt like dying. 

They managed to let Steve safely into the passenger seat. He immediately curled up into himself, hugging his arms around his knees and closing his eyes tightly.

Part of him wanted Billy to drive him straight to the hospital. 

Billy jogged back to the still-open motel door, making sure that they had everything—including Steve’s shoes which they’d left by the door—and then pulled it closed behind him. He left the keys in the lock. 

When Billy got back into the car, Steve was already back to mouth-breathing, his head lulled into the middle of the seats. Billy woke the Beemer to a dull purr, cranked the heat as high as it would go, and peeled quickly out of the lot.

—

The third time Steve woke up, it was to the somewhat familiar lurch of turning right onto Cherry Lane. A hump in the uneven asphalt rocked the car just enough to jostle him awake and he opened his eyes, dazed and confused. 

Was he… driving?

He sat up quickly, his arms shooting out to grab for the steering wheel he thought was in front of him. Instead, he grasped the air and felt a hot pang against the back of his head. 

He was in the passenger seat. Billy Hargrove was behind the wheel.

“Didn’t we agree I’d drive on the way back?” Steve asked. 

He squinted at Billy and Billy stared back. There was blood on the side of Billy’s nose. 

“You’re crazy,” Billy said. He was staring at Steve with something weirdly soft—a look of concern and something else in his eyes. 

It made Steve’s stomach roll. “Why are you—?”

“Hey, knucklehead,” Billy said, cutting him off. He reached an arm across Steve’s chest and gently encouraged Steve back against the chair. He stayed like that until he had to use his hand to put the car in park along the curb in front of Hopper’s house. 

“Relax,” Billy said and turned towards him. The car’s hum drooped into silence. “You’re okay.”

Steve couldn’t stop squinting at Billy. His eyes ached and he was beginning to feel the nauseousness that his sleeping had subdued. He felt some emotion like guilt rising in him, though he wasn’t sure exactly what he’d done.

All Steve could remember in that moment was how hot it’d been under the covers. 

Now they were outside of Hopper’s house and Billy had blood on his nose and his shirt collar, and a purple bruise under his left eye.

“You’re—“

“Harrington,” he said quickly. “Let’s go inside.”

“You’re  _ bleeding _ !”

Billy ignored him, letting himself out of the driver’s side door and letting it close without slamming shut. Then Billy was at Steve’s car-side, opening the door and crouching down just enough for Steve to see his face.

There was a lot of blood along his nose. 

Billy was gesturing for him to get out. “Come on, pretty boy.”

“ _ Why _ are you  _ bleeding _ ?”

“It’s—“

“And what happened to rescuing Mike? And your eye? And you’re bleeding so  _ much, oh my god! _ ”

Billy got right up in Steve’s face then, bracing the back of Steve’s head at the top of his neck with one hand and letting the other gather the fabric at Steve’s side.

Steve’s heart was beating so fast that it  _ hurt _ .

“I promise you, I am okay,” Billy said, his eyes wide and sincere. Something about them felt so threatening though. “I’m worried about you right now though. You need to lay down.”

The hand behind Steve’s head dropped to his wrist. Billy was gently pulling him from the car.

“I think you have a pretty high fever,” Billy said quietly to him and Steve finally let Billy walk him up towards the small, screened-over front door. “So I’m going to see if Joyce has any pain relievers..”

“But you’re the one who’s  _ bleeding _ ,” Steve moaned.

“I’m not bleeding anymore. It’s dry. I’ll wash it off while you rest, okay?”

Steve silently let Billy help him through the doorway and through the living room and kitchen. Billy’s bedroom was the farthest back, through a cheap wood door with a plastic handle painted brass-yellow. Inside, Billy’s bed was pushed up against the left wall, a wide window spanning from the middle of the bedside to the other wall. There was a full bathroom across from his bed, and next to the bathroom door was Billy’s dresser, which held what few clothes Billy had collected or been gifted to him from Joyce for his handiwork. The room was overwhelmingly plain—nothing like Billy’d old bedroom at home, which he’d decorated to be his sanctuary. 

The only signs of Billy himself in the room were a stack of books and a candle on top of his bedside table. That, and the room smelled overwhelmingly like him.

Steve felt like he might melt right there.

He could hardly help himself as Billy led him over to the bed. Steve put his hand down on the mattress, fighting Billy for just a second.   
He couldn’t believe this was happening.   
Billy was helping Steve into his bed.

Then, he couldn’t fight it anymore.

Billy helped him climb the rest of the way into the bed and tucked the comforter up around Steve’s shoulders. Steve was breathing hard and exhaled roughly. He couldn’t bring himself to look at Billy; his head was pounding and he felt just so hot and yet so cold.

“I’m sorry,” Steve said. “There’s something wrong with me.”

Billy shushed him quietly, patting him gently on the shoulder. “I’m gonna go look for some meds for you, okay?”

Steve wanted him to stay.

He wasn’t sure if it was because he was afraid of dying or if he was afraid of Billy’s absence. 

“Will you come back?”

Billy nodded, moving away from the bedside. “I’ll be right back.”

—

“I need to speak with you,” Nancy demanded. 

Billy had came back that night after gathering Steve a medicine cup of pills and a space heater. He’d set them up on the nightstand and then laid down on the floor, wanting to give Steve his space to rest well. Billy woke up on the floor a few hours later and stumbled to the door, vaguely registering that he’d heard someone knocking on his door. Unlocking the twist-lock, he pulled it open and stepped into the hallway to find himself uncomfortably close to a boiling Nancy Wheeler. Her little mouth was pressed into a hard line and she was stabbing him with her icy eyes from under her manicured brow.

“You’ve got me,” Billy said, wiping at his eyes. He was too disoriented for this. His whole body was so warm from the space heater.

“We were counting on him,” she stated, “and now we’re facing severe consequences because of your decision-making.” She was standing too close to Billy to be speaking as loud as she was. That, and Steve was asleep on the other side of the wall. The last thing Billy needed was a disoriented Steve walking through the door to find Billy with his hands around Nancy’s neck. Not that that was going to happen.

“Look,” he said, balling one hand into a fist behind his back. He w _ asn’t _ going to lose it. He  _ wasn’t _ . “Everything went just fine as it was—”

“That’s not true and you know it,” she spat back. 

Billy understood what she was referencing, but he wasn’t going to let her have it. “Mike’s safe and no one’s dead. What else can you ask for?”

“I’m asking for you to quit trying to act like you’re in charge.”

“In charge? Me? Are you kidding me?”

“No. I’m not kidding you.”

“I don’t think I’m in charge, by  _ any means. _ I owe everything to the people in this house. I have nothing if not for them.  _ Nothing _ .”

Nancy screwed up her little mouth into a frown and glowered up at him with all the anger her body could hold. She positioned herself so that she was leaning back into her hips, crossing her arms across her chest. “I don’t want you here,” she spat.

“That’s very clear to me,” Billy said. He took a step away from her, but found himself with his back against the wall. It was like a tick—as the back of his head knocked just a little too hard against the drywall—he felt himself short-circuit. 

He was going to lose it.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

Steve was asleep on the other side of this cold, flat wall. He was probably still curled up into himself, clinging to one of Billy’s pillows, waiting to be taken care of all over again. He needed Billy. He need him to walk away from this situation. 

Billy breathed again—in and out.

“You know, Nance,” Billy said slowly. He was slipping. He hadn’t punched anything in so long. Maybe since he’d first been given the chance to walk again in the hospital and he realized that his legs could hardly hold him. This feeling wasn’t the same—he could control this. “I really appreciate you coming to me with your concern, but I’m a little occupied at the moment. So, if you’ll excuse me—”

He was backing away for the both of them—for all three of them. Nancy, too. He could see it in her eyes that she was also just seconds away from losing it. She glared right through him as he took hold of the doorknob. “Take care of yourself now. Tell Mike we say hi.”

He pulled the door shut behind himself before Nancy could try to take the last word. 

From behind the closed door, he could still hear her huff and turn heavily on her little heel. 

—

Billy knelt down next to the bathtub, leaning over to turn the nozzle and plug the drain. A gush of water burt form the faucet and then eased into an even stream. Giant wisps of steam rose from the basin as it slowly filled. 

“Morning,” a voice said from behind him. It might’ve made Billy jump if Steve wasn’t always lingering in Billy’s head. Tousled brown fair, blushed cheeks, pink lips, doe-eyes.

Billy turned over his shoulder and there he was, long-sleeve, sweatpants, and all. Just as Billy knew he’d be. 

“Morning,” Billy replied. He offered Steve some kind of smile. “How are you feeling?”   
Steve shrugged. He might’ve offered him some kind of smile back.

This was hard. They were happy to be seeing each other on this pale blue morning. They’d woken up in the same bed and might’ve slept better than they could let themselves admit. That felt weird.

“Gonna take a bath?” Steve asked. It was now that Billy noticed the tired in Steve’s eyes, swishes of puffy skin on the top of Steve’s cheeks. He very obviously had just rolled out of bed and meandered right over to Billy. First thing.

“Actually,” Billy said, turning back to the water. He dipped his hand in—it was just the littlest bit too hot, which was perfect—and stood up, wiping his fingers on the hanging hand-towel Joyce had bought for the house.

_ Home is Where the Heart is _ , it read along its trim. 

“I was thinking it’d be good, uh, for you to take one. Actually.”

“Actually?” Steve repeated, allowing himself to grin at Billy now. There was so much of some happy emotion in Steve’s eyes, but it looked like he couldn’t open them any wider, too numb still from the sleep. One of Steve’s hands carded up through his messy hair. 

Billy couldn’t help it. He looked away and smiled, softly, at the wall.

“Actually,” Billy laughed.

“Well, alright then,” Steve said, his shoulders shrugging up to his ears. He grabbed his shit by the back of the neck and lifted it up over his head. He winced as he pulled it all the way off, his muscles still exhausted. Then though, he reached his hands down into the waist of his sweatpants. 

Billy couldn’t move, half a smile paralyzed on his mouth. He was staring right there at the center of Steve’s pants. 

“You okay, Hargrove?”

“You could wait—”   
“Does it bother you?” Steve asked. 

Billy searched his face for some kind of hint or smirk, but Steve just looked almost genuinely confused. Steve’s eyebrow twitched.

“I guess not,” Billy said, which was a lie. They both knew it, but pretended like they didn’t. 

Billy wanted to take another step back if he could, or just walk away, but his heels were flush against the tub and Steve was taking up the whole doorway with his elbows out, his hands still tucked in his pants. 

Billy could feel himself blush all the way down, even before Steve stepped the rest of the way out of his clothes. Steve watched his hands. Billy stared at the doorframe. 

When Steve was there, standing in front of him with all of his clothes in a pool at his feet, Billy finally felt all of the air suck right out of the bathroom. He’d stood before a naked Steve Harrington before, but this felt different somehow.

Maybe it had to do with the indent of Steve’s body on the right side of Billy’s cream-colored sheets that Billy could still see, just over Steve’s shoulder.

“You should get in,” Billy said, stepping to the side. “I’ll go get you some water and something to eat so you don’t just sit there and boil.”

Steve nodded, his hands on his bare hips.    
Sometimes Steve Harrington really blew Billy’s mind. 

—

The kitchen was much busier than Billy’d hoped. The bulge pressing against his sweatpants wasn’t exactly inconspicuous. 

El stood at the sink, rinsing a few dishes to move to the drying rack. Joyce and Hopper sat at the far end of the kitchen table—him moving a forkful of eggs to his mouth slowly as she rubbed his back. They all looked up when Billy appeared in the doorway.

He wished, desperately, that he’d given himself a half a minute to calm down.

“Hi, Billy,” El said, offering him a dimpled smile over her bony shoulder. She never smiled at him with her teeth, which was endearing because, that way, all of her joy had to shine through the rest of her face. He was happy to see her happy. 

“Hi, Jane,” he said, smiling back at her. He was the only one that called her that. She’d asked him if he would. She set a last cup upside down in the drying rack and then turned the rest of the way to face him.

“Oh! Billy,” Joyce said, drawing their attention. “How’s Steve, honey?”

Joyce talked to Billy like he was one of her own. It first, it’d made his skin crawl. It ignited his flight or fight response, or something like that. But then he realized that she did that with everyone—Hopper, too, sometimes—and then he realized that he just wasn’t used to the feeling of someone treating him gently. 

He smiled at her. It didn’t hurt to smile at her. “He’s alright, Ms. Byers,” Billy said. “He’s in the bath right now, which I’m hoping will help him out.” 

“That’s very, very good. Do you two need anything? Can I get you anything?”

There were a lot of things Billy needed—almost all of them being things that Joyce Byers could not give him.

Food, however, she could.

He stepped further into the kitchen, his  _ problem _ nearly resolved. He sighed. 

“I was just going to make him some toast, if that’s alright.”

Joyce waved him on. “Of course, Billy! Help yourself to whatever. Actually, you know, I went out last night and bought some oranges. Why don’t you take a couple of those to him, too.”

“I think that’s a great idea. Thank you.”

“Of course, sweetie. Of course,” she said, and with that, she offered him one last smile and turned back to Jim. Her hand had never left his shoulder. 

Hopper was who Nancy was afraid for. In fighting for Mike, he’d rounded a corner ahead of the pack—Joyce and Murray at his shoulders, El marching between them, and Billy bringing up the rear with an unconscious, but breathing Mike cradled in his arms.

Eleven kept turning around to glance at the both of them. Billy hoped she couldn’t tell how much he was actually struggling to carry Mike; the kid was bigger than he used to be. That, or Billy’d deteriorated much more than he realized in his process of dying and 

coming back to life. 

But just as Hopper had lead the group around the corner, he met a security guard face-to-face. The other man was just as big as Hopper, if not bigger, and had a taser raised up by his head. He stuck Hopper right in the cheek with it as their collision brought them both to the ground. It took them a moment to untangle themselves, but as soon as Hopper had pulled away, Eleven sent the other man skidding across the room to slam, full-bodied, into the far wall. 

He didn’t move.

Everyone was so certain they were in the clear as the team rounded one last corner to book it for the front exit. They only had twelve or so bodies in their wake, and everyone was in one piece. Yet, just as Jim was following on Billy’s heels out the door, Hopper slammed into the middle door divider, busting his lip and making his nose gush blood. 

That’s when he admitted that he couldn’t see out of his left eye after taking the taser to the face. 

So, Jim sat there, carefully measuring each bite of his breakfast on its path to his mouth, a white bandage wrapped around his head to dip over his left eye. 

Steve being there wouldn't have made a difference, was the truth. Unless Nancy was trying to imply that Steve would’ve been in Hopper’s place at the front of the group. 

But that wouldn’t have solved anything either, unless a kiss with death was what Steve needed to—

“Hey, Jay. Toss me the bread, will you?” Billy said, crossing to the toaster. He wasn;t going to think about that. 

Eleven turned towards Billy and tossed him the half-eaten loaf of white bread over-hand. 

“Thank you.”

“Toast?” she asked.

“Yep. Steve’s gotta eat something.”

“Butter and jelly?”

“Uh,” Billy said, dropping two pieces of bread into the toaster. “Sure, why not?”

She moved to the fridge, her shoulder-length hair swinging in front of her face. She replaced it without thinking and tucked it behind her ear.

“Here,” she said, crossing back to him. She held a small carton of butter in one dainty hand, and a mason jar of black-ish jelly in the other.

“Black raspberry,” she answered before Billy could ask. Sometimes he was terrified that she could hear his every thought. He took the butter and jelly from her and moved them to the counter. “It’s  _ so _ good.”

“That’s perfect then,” he said, just as the toaster popped. He offered her his fist for her to bump. As she did, he shifted, grabbing her wrist, and pulling her under his arm. He rubbed his knuckles on top of her head, but only rough enough to tousle her hair. She shoved him off and stepped back, her whole face smiling—even her teeth.

She shook her head and tucker her hair back behind her ears. It was still sticking up on the top of her head.

“Weirdo,” she said, rolling her eyes, dimples still popped. “I’m glad you are this happy.”

“You too, knucklehead,” Billy said. He winked at her as he turned back to Steve’s toast. “Whatever you say.”

—

“I brought you this—” Billy said, toeing the bathroom door open, “—apple juice, toast, and an orange. I can get you more if you’re still hungry.”

Steve nodded, his bottom lip popping out. Sparkles of sweat glinted in his hairline. “You can just put that all—” he offered, gesturing to the ground.

Billy bent down and set the plate down, but handed the glass directly to Steve.

“Drink that, please.”

Steve didn’t hesitate.

He took a swig, the sound of his swallowing audible. Watching him made Billy feel guilty.

“What’s the spread on the toast?” Steve asked. 

“Blackraspberry jam,” Billy said, straightening up.

“Oh.”

“If you like it, then it was all me. If not, then you can blame Jane.”

Steve smiled. “How was she?”

“Much happier than she was a few nights ago.”

“That’s good,” Steve said. He narrowly missed knocking his head against the tile wall as he leaned back and took in a deep breath. He leaned forward just in time and set his glass on the ground. “Well, thanks, regardless.”

Billy couldn’t decide whether to say “you’re welcome,” or “don’t mention it,” so he just said nothing. Then they were just standing there—Steve staring at the shower curtain and Billy at that hand towel. The only sound in the room was the faucet dripping once into the tub by Steve’s feet. 

“Are you doing okay?” Steve asked.

Billy furrowed his brow and allowed himself one glance at Steve—he almost managed to only look at his face. 

It was  _ hard _ .

Billy swallowed. “Me?”

“Yes, you.”

“I’m doing just fine, Harrington,” Billy rubbed his toe over a knick in the floor tile. 

“You look kinda beat,” Steve said, his eyes following Billy as he swayed, his frown breaking into a little laugh. 

“Oh, yeah?” Billy’s focus didn’t shift from the floor. “Well, you look kinda naked.”

“Nice one,” Steve said. From the corner of his eye, Billy watched Steve set the cup on the ground again. He hadn’t even heard him take another drink.

Steve coughed and then sniffled. 

“So, I have a question,” Steve said.

Billy decided immediately that he wasn’t going to answer it. He was focusing too hard on mentally redirecting the blood-flow from his dick. 

Damn, he had a problem.

“What’s that?” he asked anyways. Just to entertain the idea.

“Well, could you sit down first?” Steve asked. “So, you know, you’re not just making straight eye contact with my cock?”

“For one, I’m not,” Billy replied, pressing his back against the wall and sliding down. He bent his knees and sat with his legs apart. “But two, are you insecure or something now?”

“Mmh,” Steve hummed, looking at himself between his legs. Billy grabbed at the crotch of his sweatpants and pulled, shifting like he were fixing a wedgie. He wasn’t though, to say the least.

“I can’t say I am,” Steve said. He was right; he really had nothing to be embarrassed about. “Do you think it’s gotten any bigger since the last time you saw it, back in our glory days?”

Billy huffed, his eyebrows working up on his forehead. He pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers and closed his eyes. “I’m not having a conversation with you about your dick.”

“Oh,  _ come on _ —”

“So what I’m getting from this is that you feel a whole lot better then?”

“I think I’m always feeling up for a good dick conversation.”

Billy turned to Steve then. They both had equally odd expressions on their faces, neither of them totally able to believe they were really having this conversation.

“So I can eat your toast then? And you can go make some for yourself?”

“No way,” Steve laughed. They both reached for the plate, but Billy obviously let Steve win. He scooped up the plate fast enough to roll off the orange that was balancing on the edge of the plate. Billy leaned forward and replaced the orange next to Steve’s cup.

Steve took a bite of the top piece of toast. His face shifted first to inquisition, to shock, to some kind of pleased. He licked his lips and bobbed his head.

“This shit is  _ good _ , holy fuck. Did you try it?”

“I haven’t. I’ll have to—”

Steve moved his half-eaten piece of toast in front of Billy’s face. “Please try it right now. I want to see your reaction.”

“You’re sick,” Billy replied. He looked away, up at the mirror hung over the sink. In it was the reflection of the white bathroom door. “I’ll tell Jane that you love it.”

“I thought this was your suggestion, since it’s really fucking good.”

“You’re right, actually. You’re welcome.”

The sound of Steve chewing felt like he was right up against Billy’s ear, which made him mad. Even such an annoying sound made Billy want to move closer.

He breathed hard.

He wanted a cigarette. 

“I didn’t actually have a question,” Steve said, taking another bite of toast.

“Huh?”

He took a second to chew and then said, “I told you I had a question for you to sit down for, but I don’t actually have one.”

Billy rolled the thought around in his head. He decided to play this game. “So you’re telling me that you don’t have a  _ single _ question for me?”

“I mean, shit,” steve said, shovelling the last corner of his bread into his mouth. He spoke around it. “Do you want me to like interview you or something?”

“I mean—”

“Yeah, okay,” Steve interrupted. He was playing, too. Billy could tell just by looking at his profile. Steve had more freckles than he remembered. 

Steve set his plate down on the ground and extended his hand toward Billy.

Billy cocked an eyebrow, looking between Steve’s palm and his eyes.

“Steve Harrington,” Steve said and made a gesture like Billy was supposed to shake his hand. 

Even that was too dangerous of a game. 

“You’re sick.”

“Is that your excuse for everything?”

“I mean,  _ you’re sick _ ,” Billy repeated.

“We’ve been sleeping in the same damn bed, Hargrove.”

Billy shook his head. Whether or not he’d mentally normalized it, it was so weird to hear aloud. “Your hand is wet,” he tried again.

Steve scoffed, retracting his hand. It made a little splash as Billy dunked it back under the water. 

“Are you really gonna talk to your boss like that?”

“Oh, so I’m hired?”

“Not exactly—”

“What even is this position?”

“Aren’t I supposed to be asking the questions?”

“I’m just trying to figure out what I’m trying to sell myself for, Harrington. That’s all. I’m 

not gonna apply to be a daycare worker—”

“You wouldn’t last an hour taking care of a room full of babies.”

“Hey, now.”

“I’m being honest with you.”

“Look! All I’m tryna tell you is that I wouldn’t act the same in an interview at a daycare as, you know, at a stripclub or something.” 

Steve thought about that for a second, squinting past the tops of his legs which stuck out above the bath. Then, he said, “Well, in that case, the position is my personal caretaker by day, personal stripper at night. Two-in-one.”

Billy stared at him, wide-eyed. This was the hardest he’d smiled in awhile. He licked his lips, letting his tongue linger between his teeth. 

He was speechless.

“So, uh, Mr. Har–Harringrove?” Steve continued, pretending to read an invisible paper he held in his hands. He was trying to look serious now, despite having to wrestle the smile off his own face.

Billy shook his head. 

“Mr. Harringrove, what makes you a qualified candidate for this position?”

“You’ve lost your mind, Harrington.”

“Is that the response you’d like to give?”

They were staring off at one another now. Something magnetic was pulling on them both, something that was physically almost impossible to resist.

“No, no. It’s not. Lemme, uh—I’d be qualified to be your personal caregiver and sex slave—”

Steve coughed, “ _ Ahem _ ! I said  _ stripper _ .”

“Ah, okay. Stripper. Well, I’m definitely qualified to be your caretaker since I’ve done this good of a fucking job so far. And now we’re having  _ this _ conversation, so. And, well, I’m qualified to be your fuck buddy—”

“ _ Stripper! _ ”

“— _ Stripper _ ! Okay! Jesus! I’ll be your damn stripper because I’m sexy as fuck and have already seen your dick more times than I can count on my hands, and I haven’t ran away screaming yet.”

“ _ Yet _ ,” Steve repeated.

Billy gaped at him. Steve was glaring back at him through a shiny-eyed smile. His cheeks were pink. “Are you  _ kidding _ me?”

“Sold,” Steve replied.

“Sold?”

“It’s a done-deal,” Steve said. “You’re hired, Mr. Harringrove.”

“It’s Hargrove, you dumbass.”

“Yeah, whatever you say,” Steve dismissed him. He picked the forgotten orange from off the ground. “Your first task as my personal assistant is to  _ strip _ ! This orange for me. My hands are so pruney, see?”

—

Later that night, Billy stood at the cupboard, staring up at the boxes of cereal, random cans of vegetables and soups, and mason jars of basics. He and Steve had missed dinner and no one had come to get them either—either that, or they hadn’t heard the knock. They’d fallen asleep there after long enough, Billy waking up with a crick in his neck, and Steve shivering and pruned.

“I might just have to fire you for that, Hargrove. An hour in and you’re sleeping on the job,” Steve had said, his voice strained. He shuffled out of the bathroom in his sweats, his hair towel-dried and unruly. He was half-smiling, though his eyes looked sunken-in again, purple circles resting on top of his cheeks.

“Fuck, I need to go back to sleep,” Steve groaned. Sitting in that cold bath probably did more harm than help. 

Billy felt guilty. He could admit that.

“You really have to eat something,” Billy said, standing up from his perch on the side of the bed.

Steve nodded, agreeing glumly. He put his back to the wall and slid down to his butt.

“What are you doing?” Billy asked, moving over to his dresser just to Steve’s left. He fished a pair of wool socks Joyce had brought him after rehanging her curtains shortly after his initial arrival. He threw them, underhand, into Steve’s lap. “Put these on and get into bed,” Billy ordered. “I’m going to go find some food.”

Billy thought of Steve as he stood and stared absolutely into the pantry. He really wanted Steve to feel better; he wanted to do this right. He wanted to prove to himself that he could take care of Steve Harrington, in a way that he couldn’t quite admit to himself yet.

He reached into the pantry at random and pulled out a soup can. Tomato basil.

“Oh, Billy!“ a voice came from behind him, startling him just enough to make his heart skip. He turned to find Joyce in the kitchen doorway, wrapped in a bathrobe over long pajamas. Her hair was wet at the tips.

“We weren’t sure whether to wake you for dinner,“ she said. She had a rosiness to her face now that her big stressors were gone and her house was no longer a war base, but a home, once again. “But I saved you each a plate. They’re saran-wrapped in the fridge. Sloppy Joe casserole and green beans, though feel free to help yourself to whatever!“

“Thank you, Ms. Byers. You’re too, too kind.” Billy crossed the fridge and bent down. Sure enough—two styrofoam plates sat made and ready on the middle-most shelf. “You really outdo yourself.”

“Oh, hush,” she smiled, stepping closer to him. “They should still be warm enough. We only finished not too long ago.“

Billy could still feel the heat through the bottom of the plates. He stacked one on top of the other. 

“Thank you,” Billy repeated, looking with sincerity at the small woman. He wished he could see her as his mother, he thought himself, but she really was nothing like his true Californian mother—beach-blonde hair, sun-warmer skin, a freeness about her.

Joyce was small, like a bird, and held her self with some kind of meekness. She was winter-colored, and bound by her children, and endlessly selfless—all unlike his own mom.

“You don’t need to say thank you, dear,” Joyce said, resting her hand on his shoulder and patting him lately. He let her touch him though. He felt that it would be rude to shrug or step away, though in a way, too, he needed the gentleness.

”Of course I do,” he smiled.

She rolled her eyes. ”Well, how is Steve doing? I’m sure he’s very grateful for your caregiving.“

Billy smiled at the word. He looked down at the plates, his stomach starting to ache now at the sight. “He’s doing all right, I hope. He’s been sleeping it off. I hope it’s all right that he stays another night.“

“Oh, of course! Of course. If you want, we may have an extra air mattress somewhere around here—“

“Oh! No. Uh, well. We’ve got a system worked out,“ Billy said, swallowing hard. He adjusted the plates in his hand as he felt his cheeks warm.

“Well, you let me know if there’s anything you need, okay?“

Joyce was smiling softly. Her hand was still on Billy’s shoulder. 

“Of course, Ms. Byers,” he said.

“Joyce, honey. Just call me Joyce.”

—

Steve was only half-conscious through his dinner, sometimes even missing his own mouth with his fork. He kept having to pick green beans from off his chest. Billy pretended not to notice though.

Steve eventually, finally fell asleep with his plate still sitting on his chest. Billy lifted it from him, stacking it under his own. When Billy finished too, he moved the plates to his nightstand, trading them for his loved copy of  _ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof _ . He couldn’t believe that it was one of the few things of his that Max had saved before Neil gutted Billy‘s bedroom. He guessed that it had caught her eye with all of its dog-ears, colored flags, and post it notes, though he prayed that she hadn’t read some of his annotations. 

He opened the book to where he’d bookmarked—with a piece of newspaper from an article that had been posted in the paper his debut week in Hawkins. He and Steve had tied point-wise against Evansville high school with twenty-seven points each—three of those being three-pointers and four, free-throw shots.

Of all the times he’d read through this play, this might—or definitely—had to be Billy’s favorite. He was warm, despite the coolness of the room; his body didn’t ache like it used to anymore; and there was only one person to be scared of in this whole house, and he was asleep by Billy’s side—brown eyes drifted closed, mouth hanging just the littlest bit open, and one hand lying palm-up in the space between them. It took an old kind of strength for Billy to not take hold of it—feel his hot skin, run his thumb along the heel of Steve’s hand, try out the way their fingers fit together for the first time. 

Instead, he concentrated on the pages of his book and the scribbles he’d made in the margins.

“ _ My only point, the only point that I’m making, is that life has got to be allowed to continue after the dream of life is all over… _ “

Billy had only been reading for a half-hour or so, taking his time on each page, when suddenly, Steve jerked next to him. Billy set his book down on the nightstand and quickly rolled over to face Steve. He was grimacing in his sleep, his hands pulled up towards his face as if poised to defend himself. His eyes were still screwed tightly closed, but as Billy stared at him, unsure of what to do, he could see that Steve was trembling. 

He couldn’t decide whether not to wake him. He wanted to, desperately, to disrupt the pained expression on Steve’s face, though he felt, for some reason, that he shouldn’t.

Regardless, he couldn’t help himself though. He laid a hand gently on Steve shoulder, moving in just a little closer.

“Hey, Steve?“ he said quietly, close to Steve’s face.

Before he could move back, Steve gasped, his eyes flying open. He startled out of Billy’s hold, pushing himself backwards in the bed until he was up against the headboard.

“Steve—” Billy hushed, pushing towards him. Steve’s eyes were wide and shifting between Billy’s face and looking somewhere beyond him. Steve was painting as beads of sweat were breaking out across his cheeks. 

He might’ve looked hot if it wasn’t for the panic in his eyes. 

“You’re okay,” Billy tried again, but it was no use. Steve only started breathing harder, faster, his eyes flying back-and-forth, until finally settling somewhere beyond Billy. One of Steve’s pale fists gripped the comforter, and he yanked it back towards himself as he jerked backwards again, knocking his head against the headboard with a thud.

“ _ Oh, shit. _ ”

Steve slumped down then, crumpling into the comforter and pillows like he might’ve knocked himself unconscious. Billy threw his half of the comforters away and crawled towards Steve, taking his face with one hand and bracing Steve’s shoulder with the other. Steve groaned, but let Billy sit him back up without fighting. Billy helped him lean against the headboard again, guiding his head back with both of his hands. Steve winced as Billy held him, but relaxed, finally, when Billy removed his hands and sat back to look at him. 

“Can you hear me?“ Billy asked.

Steve brought a hand to his face, pinching his nose. 

“Yeah,“ he breathed, skewing his eyes shut. His head was rattled, pounding against the pillow. He was embarrassed; he felt his cheeks rising to a boil.

“Are you okay? Can you think straight?”

Steve chuckled at that, which relieved some of the pressure in Billy’s chest. But then Steve kept laughing until he wasn’t.

He started coughing so hard his face almost immediately turned beet-red.

Steve’s hand found Billy’s and squeezed. Billy let him. He squeezed back. With his other hand, Billy gripped Steve’s shoulder again and held him steady until he calmed down. 

Steve sniffed and wiped at his eyes with both of his hands.

“What just happened?” Billy asked.

Steve sighed. He kept his eyes closed; he couldn’t look at Billy when his face looked like that—glassy eyes under his furrowed brow, breathing hard enough to collapse his whole chest as he exhaled, concern in his roaming gaze.

“This happens all the time,” Steve said, refusing to open his eyes. “I just… have weird nightmares. I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right. Really,” Billy said. He turned back so that he was sitting up against the headboard too, but safely away from Steve.

Steve, feeling him shift away and then back again, peeked his eyes open. He stared at the door to the bathroom, which was pulled closed. 

He imagined them behind it. This time, they were in the small tub together—limbs spilling out, water level high up on the enamel sides, Billy between Steve’s legs.

Steve sunk down in the bed until his head was among the pillows again. He really couldn’t be thinking of that. Of  _ them _ like that.

“Do you… wanna talk about it?” Billy‘s voice asked from above. Steve didn’t react; he was thinking about how warm the bed was, the comforter soaking up their body heat like skin absorbs the sun.

Steve felt like he was burning.

Billy took his silence as a yes, of sorts. “How often is a lot?“

Steve sighed and then brought his hands to his face, rubbing over his eyes again. All he could say was, “I’m sorry.”

“Hey, it’s  _ fine _ ,” Billy insisted. “I’m just worried about your head.”

“I’m fine, really. I do this  _ all _ the time at home,” Steve said. He sniffled.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Billy asked again.

Steve didn’t react.

“ _ Will _ you tell me about it?”

Steve was still silent.

“Okay,” Billy said eventually, exhaling through his nose. Now was one of those times he regretted burning through cigarettes so fast. He could really go for damaging the hell out of his lungs right now.

“I’m sorry,” Steve repeated.

“Harrington—”

“No,  _ really _ . I just—” Steve grabbed the pillow from under his head and pressed it over his face. Billy winced as Steve’s head bounced on the mattress. Steve’s bottom lip was quivering as he sucked air in. “—I’m sorry for never coming to visit you. In the hospital.”

Billy stared at Steve, his eyebrows drawn together. “ _ What _ ?” 

Steve wouldn’t let go of the pillow, but he did let Billy guide it away from his face. Steve’s cheeks were bright pink against his pale skin. There were tears welling in his dark eyes. Billy had to make sure that Steve wasn’t bleeding anywhere he hadn’t noticed before.

He sounded crazy.

“You didn’t even know I was alive, Harrington. There was no way for you to know. For all you knew, I was rotting in the fucking ground.“

“Why didn’t you call me or something?”   
“We didn’t have a relationship like that.”

“I would have come to see you.”

“I know you would’ve.”

“My dad’s house numbers in the phonebook. You could’ve  _ called me _ .”

Billy lifted the pillow away from Steve then, gesturing for him to lift up his head. Steve complied and let Billy put the pillow back. It was cool on the back of his neck.

“What’s your nightmare about?”

Steve rolled onto his side so that he was facing Billy fully now. His head was still pounding, echoing his heartbeat lodged in his throat. He’d already said so much—way too much. If his life wasn’t already over, it would be in a moment.

He stared at the center of Billy’s chest where he used to wear open-necked shirts. Steve imagined the scars that decorated his skin now—pale white fingers pointing to all of the places Steve would touch Billy if he was ever brave enough.

Under his t-shirt, just over his heart, there was a dime-sized lump from that necklace Billy had always worn. The chain crawled up from his shirt collar and around his neck. Before Steve could think too hard, his fingers were against Billy’s warm skin, carefully working the necklace out from under his shirt. Billy let him, watching Steve’s hooded eyes as he studied the necklace against his fingertips.

“Do you want to know where I got it?” he asked.

Steve took his eyes away from the pendant for a second to read Billy’s—he was calm, unwavering, watching Steve without fear. Steve, on the other hand, was very afraid. They were both trying to hide what was already creeping into the open.

Steve looked back down.

“My mom and I had the same birthday. The year I turned seven and she turned thirty, she gave me this necklace in a little box. It wasn’t wrapped or anything. I used to be kind of short for my age when I was little, so when I wore it, I’d be down to like here—” Billy pointed at his stomach, just over his naval; Steve followed with his eyes. “—on me. I wore it everywhere, except when she’d take me to the beach and stuff. Right before my mom left my dad, though, she told me that her sister had actually given her the necklace for her birthday, but my dad wouldn’t let her buy me anything so she gave it to me. She asked if I wanted to give it back to her before she left. Sometimes I wonder if I should have.“

Steve had never heard Billy talk about his mom. Not that they talked too terribly much, but considering he’d never so much as offered her existence, Steve figured that Billy had just never known her at all.

His fingers were still holding onto the pendant, but his arm was getting tired. He moved it back toward Billy so the back of his hand was up against Billy’s chest.

He could feel his warmth and his heartbeat against his knuckles.

“The hospital was the best place I’ve lived maybe all of my life,“ Billy said. “Except living here, maybe. Whatever you’ve dreamed was probably more like the house that Max still goes home to every night.“

Steve rolled his head to see Billy‘s expression. He was somber, but not sad, his face pressed half into his pillow. His eyes were so blue, his jaw so carefully drawn, his California skin kissed with freckles, his lips just barely parted.

Every night in Steve’s dream, he looks like that—like a god, like a prize—except he’s bleeding out from every curve his body. Billy laid on his back in a hospital bed, nurses and surgeons moving about him, but never touching him. There was blood seemingly everywhere—on the sheets, the floors, the walls, the people, their tools—and yet Billy was  _ still _ bleeding and bleeding and refusing to die. 

He’s bleeding from his nose, his hand, his lips, his neck, his chest, his elbows, his hips. There are tears leaking out of his eyes and they’re deep, staining red. 

At first Steve could see him from above, like an angel hovering above, allowing this to go on and on, until he drops to the ground and he’s standing in the doorway, only seeing glimpses of Billy between moving bodies, over shoulders and around arms. He never thinks to move closer into the room to help Billy himself. Instead, he tries to get the attention of the nurses striding past him. They never react to his voice, only to whenever he finally reaches out and takes one by the arm. It’s always the same nurse—a small, olive-skinned woman with huge black eyes and a mask that covers her nose and mouth. As she stops and looks at Steve, so does everyone else.

Including Billy, whose eyes are wide, blue, and terrified.

“Steve?” Billy whispers. Not Harrington. Not  _ King _ Steve. Just. Steve. In a whisper that carries a thousand, trembling words.

And then Steve wakes up.

This, Steve laying, facing Billy in his own bed, must’ve been the thirtieth time he’d had that same dream. It’d happened ever since—

“One night, maybe a week before you came back, El said she saw you in a dream,“ Steve said, his eyes watching Billy carefully.

He didn’t so much as blink. 

“She,” Steve continued, “well, we were all at the dinner table when she said she visited you. No one really… believed her, until you just showed up that one night. At the back door.”

Steve looked to Billy, hoping he’d talk again now. Steve didn’t know what else to say. 

His hand was still wrapped around Billy’s pendant. Billy’s heart was thudding hard, but slow against Steve’s first.

“We talked a couple times,” Billy nodded. “But never for all that long or that often that I can remember. Some of my treatment there messed with some of my memories, but I’d shown Eleven everything before I... died and after they brought me back. She helped me try to get some of myself back.”

It was Billy’s turn to avoid Steve’s eyes. This was weird, almost painful in a way to talk about himself like this with Steve listening, probably thinking millions of questions Billy couldn’t answer.

“I don’t know why her powers were like… collected in me. But it was nice to see someone I almost knew. She told me that I could live with her when I got better and that she needed someone to check up on you—”

Their eyes met. Billy’s were blurry; Steve’s burned as a tear escaped over his cheek.

“—She was really worried about you.”   
“She knew that I was having nightmares.”

“Did you tell her?”   
“No, not exactly. I fell asleep in the livingroom one night on accident, I guess. And I think I was crying and it woke her up or something, and...” Steve paused, his voice getting caught in his throat. He let go of Billy’s necklace, but couldn’t stop staring there, at his chest. “My nightmares are about  _ you _ so I was saying your  _ name _ in my  _ sleep _ and—”

Steve was crying again now. His head ached down the middle, right between his eyes. His face felt hot and sticky. He felt so sick.

So Billy reached over and wrapped his arms around him—one under Steve’s shoulders and the other at Steve’s hips. Steve let him. He didn’t even wince at the sudden, overwhelming warmth; he felt like a match finally catching flame, or a meteor bursting into fire on contact with the sun. 

This made sense. Right here. Like this. Everything made sense.

“I’m okay,” Billy said. “I’m really okay now. And so are you.”   
And Steve believed him.

—

Maybe a month later, Billy and Steve sat adjacent to one another at the oversized table in the Harrington kitchen. It was a sunny, but cool Saturday morning—the sunrise shining bright white and light blue in through the backyard-facing window. The two boys sat among their last night’s mess. They’d made snickerdoodles and split a pack of beers. In a lot of different ways, they were very much feeling last night on this morning.

Billy glared at the crossword section of a month-old newspaper as Steve absently turned an orange over and over in his hands. Between the two of them, they’d filled in  _ maybe _ ten words, all of which they were almost certain were completely wrong.

Whose idea was this again?

“Shouldn’t you be good at this with all those books you read?” Steve asked, sliding the paper back towards himself, the orange settling in his left hand. He turned it over so that it held the weight of his hand against the table. He wasn’t particularly worried about squishing it.

Billy dropped his head in his hands and stared at the now empty tablespace directly in front of him. “How’s any book going to help me figure out sixteen-down? ‘Cold person seen as victim becomes more intimate’? Really?”

“Well that’s easy! You!” Steve said, writing ‘B-I-L-L-Y-H’ in the boxes going down the page.

“I don’t think that’s the right answer,” Billy laughed. He was wearing Steve’s t-shirt and sweatpants. If Billy was ever bigger than Steve, he wasn’t now. He had to roll Steve’s pants at both the waist and the ankles, and the Hawkins High shirt seemed to swallow Billy whole. 

But he didn’t mind. He liked noting more than drowning in Steve Harrington. This would just be what had to do.

He pulled on the collar to adjust Steve’s shirt on his shoulders as he scooted his chair closer. “Gimme that,” Billy insisted, reaching to lift the pencil from Steve’s hand. He was writing Billy’s name in another box, and then another.

Steve swatted at him, guarding the newspaper with his shoulder. “No, no, no. I think I’ve figured this out!” Steve said, smiling and shaking his head.

“I think this one’s supposed to be ‘Steve’ actually,” Billy corrected, dropping his finger down on top of the last column Steve had written in Billy’s name. “Eight down? 

‘Irksome’?”

“Nice one,” Steve laughed. “For that, you can peel this for me.” 

He rolled his orange to Billy.

“Why would I do that for you?”

“Because I’m busying writing ‘Hargrove’ under ‘selfish person.’”

“Ha-ha,” Billy said, close to Steve’s ear. Now, when Steve turned to look at him, their noses were almost touching. Steve could see all of the gold in Billy’s eyelashes over his blue eyes. If he could, he’d take hold of Billy’ face. He’d have him sit there, looking at him like that, with a happy smoulder melting away at him from the inside, while he counted each freckle across his cheeks. 

But he couldn’t.

This was as close as they’d ever gotten. That, and Billy was an uncoolable, ever-moving force. He couldn’t be still for more than just a moment.

Billy’s eyes moved away, back to the crossword puzzle once again.

“Hargrove doesn’t even fit!” Billy laughed. He landed his finger on the empty box after the end of his last name.

Some of the old Billy resurfaced again when Steve convinced him to move out of Hopper’s house and into the Harrington guest bedroom. Not that he sleeps there all that often—sometimes they fall asleep on the couch watching TV and wake up folded over one another, or, if Steve’s lucky, Billy will pass out in Steve’s bed with him. Then, in the morning, Steve always feels the need to talk much more than he should, and Billy takes his opportunity to wag his tongue back at him.

Every day’s a game.

_ This _ is a game—Billy learning over to point his finger down, so close to Steve’s side that they’re breathing in time. Billy’s eyes are on the side of Steve’s face. If Steve turned, he could kiss the smirk off Billy’s mouth, push up against him, pull him onto his lap.

But this was a game. But not the same as basketball, or beerpoing. This wasn’t even anything like Nancy—whatever it was that they played together.

He wasn’t sure how to score and points.

“If you don’t peel this damn orange for me, you’ll leave me no choice but to fire you.”   
“Fire me?”   
“Yes.”   
“From what?”   
“Being my personal stripper,” Steve explained. This wasn’t something that they’d completely let go of, though it had been awhile since the last time Steve insisted on Billy pulling apart his fruit, or tearing open his mail, or anything like that.

Billy huffed and took the orange from Steve’s palm, their fingers brushing in the exchange. He worked his index finger in at the bottom by its dimple and began ripping away at the rind.

“I can’t believe I’m going to say this,” Billy started, pulling away most of the peel in one piece. Steve shifted in his seat. “But I really think you under-abused your power in this situation.”   
“Oh?” Steve said, pretending to occupy himself in the word puzzle again. “How so?”

B…

“There’s so much more to being a personal stripper than this,” Billy said, setting the peeled orange on the table between Steve’s forearms.

I…

“Really? I bet you have a lot of other experience.”   
L…

“Not really actually. I’ve but thought about it a lot.”   
“Have you?”

L…

“Yeah.”

“Anything good?”

“Do you wanna see for yourself?” Billy asked.

Y.

“I mean—” Steve began. Was it really going to happen now? Like this? Over a crossword? 

If he turned over his shoulder now and made eye contact with the California boy, said, yes, leaned in, would he know all of the answers to all of his questions?

His heart-rate was picking up, like a scared doe skipping and then bolting away from an oncoming car. 

Except Steve was about to run right into the road.

He turned, pressed forward, and let himself be hit, full-force, so hard it knocked the wind from his lungs and pulled his heart to a dead-stop.

Billy Hargrove’s mouth was on his. His mouth was against Billy Hargrove’s. 

He’d wondered, lying next to Billy as he slept, if kissing a boy was the same as kissing a girl. 

Billy slept with his mouth just barely open, hardly ever moving or making any noise at all. Steve missed his eyes when they were closed, but he liked that, in the moments before he fell asleep, Billy was so warm and so unafraid—to take up the whole bed, to lean up against him, to stay in place the next morning until Steve woke up too.

Kissing Billy Hargrove felt like that—warm or hot, but completely unafraid. It felt like being waited for. It felt like letting—craving—someone to take up everything.

Kissing Billy Hargrove was like striking a million matches, all at once, and lighting everything on fire.

Billy’s warm hand slipped in under the hem of Steve’s shirt. It came to rest up on his hip, his fingers drawing circles, pulling Steve in, and in, and in, until the whole world was fading fast.

Until it was just them. And they were kissing. 

—

“Now  _ this _ is a code red situation,” Dustin said to no-one in particular. He was standing with his hands on his hips, curly hair spilling out from under his ball cap, squaring off with a BP station candy aisle.

Billy was the only person close enough to hear him. He moved away from his perusing of their shitty jerky selection and into the aisle next to Dustin.

“What’s the problem here,” he asked, squinting at all of the colorful boxes and trying to see what Dustin was so traumatized over.

“There,” he said, pointing to an empty spot on the shelf. “ _ That’s _ where all the lemonheads  _ should _ be, but, alas. It seems we’re in a deficit.”

Dustin turned to Billy, his brow furrowed in agony. “How will I survive three more hours in that  _ car _ without them!” he wailed.

Billy grunted. He needed some cigarettes. They’d already driven for a little over two hours so far on their trek to Monroe, Michigan. Steve had insisted on taking a roadtrip with the kids to the beach.

Billy’d severely underestimated how many packs of cigarettes this would require.

“Don’t you eat like skittles or something? Or just get a thing of gum. You’ll be fine.”

“Hargrove, look. I don’t think you  _ get _ it. You’re witnessing a code  _ red _ right now.”

“Just try something new. It’s not going to kill you.”

“It most certainly  _ will _ .”

“Well, dying’s not even all that bad, I can tell ya—”

“William!” Steve shouted from across the store. He was standing at the cash register with Lucas and a disgruntled El, who’d fallen asleep in the back row of the car across Mike’s lap. They were all looking at him.

“Quit scaring the kids!”

“Hey! I’m  _ not _ . I’m just  _ saying _ —“

“Well, hurry up with your  _ saying _ so we can pay already.”

“Sheesh! You’re  _ tight _ today.”

“Oh, we’re going there, huh,” Steve scoffed and made a face—his nose wrinkled and his lips pursed. Sometimes Steve made a face like that when he wanted to be kissed.

Billy wished he could.

“Hey, Harrington. Get me a pack of camels, would you?” 

“I already did!” Steve called back. He was facing the other way now. All Billy could see was his broad shoulders and his little ass in his tight jeans. 

_ Damn _ .

Billy turned around and scanned the candy shelves one more time. He twitched, his brow knitting together. 

“They’re right there, you dumbass,” Bill said, bending down to the bottom-shelf. He picked up a carton of lemonheads and dumped it into Dustin’s hands. “Now go, before Steve kills us all.”

Dustin rolled his eyes and marched up to the front of the store. Billy lingered in the aisle a little longer, looking at nothing in particular, until he heard the bell over the exit ding. Looking up, he watched Eleven, Dustin, and Lucas run out to the car where Mike and Max had stood their ground by the car. Max was gesturing adamantly to something on the front face of the gas pump. Everyone crowded around her to look.

“Hey, knucklehead,” Steve said, his voice right in Billy’s ear. Billy turned, a little startled, to find Steve’s face inches from his own. 

He leaned forward, without a second thought, and pressed a kiss to Billy’s mouth. Billy was somewhat to startled to kiss back, though he reached out and hooked a finger into Steve’s pant-loop. He wanted a second chance at a kiss.

“I’ve got a little problem,” Steve said, licking his lips. He raised his eyebrows, trying to look at Billy like he might be in trouble.

Billy leaned back into his heels, his finger still holding onto Steve. Their bodies swayed together with the motion. “What’s that?”

“Despite it being like—oh—ninety fucking degrees out? My thigh’s been getting kinda cold sitting in the car without your hand on it, ya know?”

Billy smiled. He couldn’t help it. Steve made him want to smile  _ all the damn time _ . He sucked a breath in between his teeth and shook his head. “I think I can arrange that for you, pretty boy.”

“Yeah? You really think so?”

“Anything for you, of course.”

“Anything?” Steve pressed, one of his hands made its way along Billy’s waist, over his hipbones, until Steve’s hand was on Billy’s ass. 

“ _ Almost _ anything.”

“I’ll take it.”

—

“Will you open these for me?” Billy asked Steve.

“Really?”

“I’m driving, you fucker.”

“Watch your language. There are  _ children _ .”

“They’re not babies, Steve. Your kids are  _ fine _ .”

“You’re setting a bad example.”

“I never said I was anything but a bad example.”

“But—"

“Max, can you get this since Steve is so useless?”

“Steve, be a nice boyfriend.”

“Yeah, see, even my kid-sister thinks you’re a fuck.”

“I definitely did not say that.”

“You implied it.”

“You two magnify each other’s stupid.”

Steve laughed, finally taking the bag of skittles from Billy’s hand. Billy squeezed Steve’s thigh in thanks.

**Author's Note:**

> Again, I’d like to say a huge thank you to @flippyspoon for being such a positive influence in supporting my previous work. 
> 
> I have the weirdest relationship with writing, but I’m glad that it’s the one thing that’s always here for me when I really need it. This piece has been an escape for me over the last few weeks. I’m honestly really proud of myself for finding the perseverance to finish it. 
> 
> It is the longest thing I’ve written to date—topping the Pizza King by two hundred-plus words! 
> 
> Anyways, I would appreciate any and all feedback. If anyone has any pointers on how I could improve in the future, I’d love to hear that just as much. I hope this piece was an enjoyable experience though.
> 
> If anyone has anything they’d like to see me write, send me messages at @sycdical on tumblr!
> 
> Thank you!


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